Refastenable fastening devices of the hook and loop-type are currently used widely in a great number of situations. Such refastenable fastening devices have been used in clothing, disposable articles, and various miscellaneous articles such as safety belts and the like. Such devices are used when it is desirable to create a refastenable bond between two or more articles or between several surfaces of the same article. In certain applications, these refastenable fastening devices have replaced conventional buckles, zippers, buttons, snaps, tie fasteners, and sewing.
A popular type of mechanical fastener currently in wide use which utilizes mechanical entanglement to create a refastenable bond is sold under the trademark "VELCRO". VELCRO fastening devices are described in greater detail in U.S. Pat. No. 2,717,437, U.S. Pat. No. 3,009,235, U.S. Pat. No. 3,266,113, U.S. Pat. No. 3,550,837, U.S. Pat. No. 4,169,303, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,339.
VELCRO fasteners utilize two components, a male component and a female component. The male and female components are often referred to as the hook and loop components, respectively. The hook component consists of a fabric which contains a plurality of resilient, upstanding hook-shaped elements. The female component of the fastening device consists of a fabric containing a plurality of upstanding loops on its surface. When the hook component and the loop component are pressed together in a face-to-face relationship to close the fastening device, the hooks entangle the loops forming a plurality of mechanical bonds between the individual hooks and loops. When these bonds have been created, the components will not generally disengage under normal conditions. This is because it is very difficult to separate the components by attempting to disengage all of the hooks at once. However, when a gradual peeling force is applied to the components, disengagement can be easily effected. Under a peeling force, since the hooks are comprised of a resilient material, they will readily open to release the loops.
This type of fastening device has been found especially useful on disposable articles such as disposable garments, disposable diapers, disposable packages, cartons and the like. Such fastening devices provide a secure closing means. However, the use of existing fastening devices of this type on disposable articles has been limited due to the fact that such fastening devices are relatively costly. The major reason that such fastening devices are costly is that they have high manufacturing costs. These high manufacturing costs are associated with both the hook and loop components of these devices.
Conventional hook and loop components are typically formed by making a fabric with a number of woven loops extending outwardly from a backing. The loops may be provided by weaving a base fabric containing supplementary threads to form the loops, or by knitting loops into a fabric. In other hook and loop components, the loops may be formed by pleating or corrugating processes. The hook components of such fastening devices are typically formed by subsequently cutting the loops. The cut loops serve as the hooks of the hook component.
These processes generally produce costly hook and loop fastening materials because they are relatively slow. The hook and loop components of such fastening devices are also usually made out of the same relatively expensive material. This material is generally relatively expensive because the material used in the hook component needs to be resilient so that the hooks can disengage from the loop component when the device is opened.
Several attempts have been made to make alternative types of female components for fastening devices. However, such attempts have generally suffered from a number of drawbacks.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,694,867 issued to Stumpf on Oct. 3, 1972 discloses a "separable clasp" having a female component that comprises a "high loft" nonwoven fabric and a backing layer of consolidated flexible adhesive. U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,318 issued to Ott, et al. on Aug. 2, 1988 discloses a loop fastener that can contemporaneously be both formed and also attached to a substrate without the need for any additional steps such as sewing or utilizing pressure sensitive adhesives to affix it to the substrate. The female components disclosed in these patents suffer from the drawback that they are still made by processes that involve mechanically manipulating fibers in the form of loops. Thus, the female components described therein do not appear to significantly less expensive to manufacture than conventional loop components.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,708,833 issued to Ribich, et al. on Jan. 9, 1973 discloses a refastenable fastening device having a female component that comprises reticulated urethane foam secured to a backing layer. The female component disclosed in the Ribich, et al. patent suffers from the drawback that foams typically do not have enough openings for the hooks of conventional hook components to penetrate. In addition, reticulated foam usually does not have sufficient strength to hold such hooks when forces are applied to the fastening device. Further, manufacturing reticulated foam is a relatively expensive process.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,905,071 issued to Brumlik on Sep. 16, 1975 discloses a "press-through self-gripping device". The device disclosed in the Brumlik patent does not appear to be suitable for use in a refastenable fastening device that utilizes a conventional mating hook component with resilient hooks. The device disclosed in the Brumlik patent is intended to be used for fastening one or more sheets of material between a gripping member and a receiving member. The gripping member disclosed in the Brumlik patent has rigid and stiff needle-shaped elements for gripping elements. These needle-like elements are particularly unsuitable for use in fastening devices on disposable absorbent articles. The disclosure of the Brumlik patent, thus, appears to be limited to devices that employ gripping elements adapted to penetrate and pass through several sheets of material and lodge inside a receiving member.
Therefore, there is a need for a low-cost fastening device for disposable articles. In particular, there is a need for such low-cost fastening devices to perform in a manner comparable to the more expensive commercially-available fastening devices.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved low-cost female component for a fastening device.
It is another object of the present invention to form a low-cost female component for a refastenable fastening device without manipulating fibers in the form of loops.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a female component for a fastening device that can be used with both commercially-available hook components having resilient individual hooks, as well as less expensive hook components with more brittle hooks than those currently in use.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a low-cost and improved method for producing such a female component.
These and other objects of the present invention will be more readily apparent when considered in reference to the following description and when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings.